


Hyacinthus

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Implied/Referenced Underage, M/M, Nicaise's situation which is a trigger warning by itself, Other, Pining, when will my reflection show who I am inside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 20:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14363268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: Neither pets nor whores fall in love.





	Hyacinthus

**Author's Note:**

> This is for tumblr user @pr0ko, who requested Laurent/Nicaise. Angry screaming accepted in the comment section.

_I'll offer for you, if you'd like. When the time comes._

Laurent was right. He wasn't thirteen, not any more. He'd been fourteen for seven months.

Nicaise stepped out of the bath, steam rising from skin turned pink from water that had been nearly too hot to bear. He ran dripping hands through the wet curls of his hair, slicking it back away from his face, then used a washcloth to scrub the last of the paint from his eyes and lips. He'd already scrubbed the rest of himself, until his arms were sore and his flesh felt raw. It hadn't really made him feel any cleaner.

Off the huge tiled bathroom in the pets' quarters was a smaller room, curtained for privacy and thickly carpeted to help dry delicate and expensive feet. During the day, this place was a hornet's nest of half-dressed pets and harried attendants, shrill voices calling for face powder or hair oil, moaning about spots and rashes from hastily shaved hair, shrieking that their most expensive lip rouge had been stolen, stolen, stolen.

Nicaise stepped into the room naked, grateful for the cool breeze from the screened windows and for the blessed silence. Normally he'd never step foot into a place like this: he hated noise and crowding and twice hated tired old brothel whores pretending they were worth the money they were squeezing out of the blind nobles they bedded. But at this time of night, after midnight but well before the first graying of dawn, the baths were deserted. 

When Nicaise's head began to overfill with the sort of anxious whining he hated from other pets, he would come here to wash, to listen to nothing echoing on nothing against the tiled walls, to sit in front of the silver-backed mirror in the dressing room and spend a little time with the stranger in his reflection.

He had his mother's chin, her small, delicate mouth. His father's long, straight nose. His eyes were reddened now, irritated from his rough work with the washcloth. And his eyebrows had begun to thicken again, growing back from the slender lines he'd plucked them to so that his face would appear more youthful, less heavy. 

If he grew up as handsome as his father, or as lovely as his mother, he'd have the attention of every noble at court. He'd be drowning in offers for contracts. 

But he wouldn't have one from where he needed it. Not that way.

Nicaise smoothed his hair back again, looked back into his own eyes in the mirror. Neither pets nor whores fell in love. And he hadn't. Wasn't. But he had always pointed his eyes at a better thing, a step up. It was why he was alive when his parents and sisters were dead. It was how he wore real silks and jewels now instead of cheap imitations stained with sweat and stinking of musk, or carved out of colored glass and set into crudely made rings that made his fingers turn green. It was what had helped him survive and succeed where so many others couldn't.

And he could see Prince Laurent doing the same. Little by little, Laurent had clawed his way up a steep path fraught with deceit and danger-- as perilous, perhaps, as the path of an orphaned street whore who'd had dreams of appearing at court on a nobleman's arm, glittering with gems and paint. 

There, there was a man who saw what he wanted and would fight to get it. There was a man who would move up and up until he was atop everyone else. There was the man that Nicaise would follow, for when war broke out, whether private or public, he always preferred to be on the winning side. 

That was the only reason. Not because Laurent was quick-witted, his words dancing circles around everyone else, darting in to deal a stinging blow and then retreating with a fox's cunning smile. Not because he spent nights reading and poring over maps and writing letters instead of drinking and watching pets in the ring. Not because he looked at Nicaise in a way that no one else did, without pity or disgust or desire. Not because Laurent was a puzzle box which Nicaise longed to smash open and peer inside.

But perhaps because Nicaise wanted to know what it was like, being with a man who might love him without paint and fripperies. Who would bring him maps and books and teach his pet to read them. Someone who didn't want the boy, but the man he was becoming. 

Nicaise stood and seized a towel, wiping at his eyes again. Everyone knew Laurent didn't have lovers, that he was frigid. Everyone knew that he'd only ever loved one person and that person was dead. If Laurent kept a pet, it would only be for show: no quiet evenings in front of the fire, no walks through the garden, no stolen kisses in the moonlight. 

It wasn't what Nicaise wanted, anyway. Because wanting that, wanting love from someone like Laurent would be stupid, and Nicaise wasn't stupid. Neither pets nor whores fell in love.

**Author's Note:**

> At the end of it all, Nicaise sacrificed himself for the one that he loved.


End file.
